Chaos (5 page)

No, not ink … magic. He touched it gingerly, but withdrew his hand immediately when that only caused the pain to flare.

Cursed …

How had he wound up cursed? Where was his sword?

Violet eyes. They glowed with magic. They reminded him of the beast he'd just killed, but somehow seemed much worse. He radiated power, the first real threat he'd encountered since beginning his quest. Unlike the others, his hair was pale, falling around his shoulders, thick and smooth.

"So you are the source of the chaos."

He didn't reply to the question, just struck. He was met with magic that actually worried him a little bit. But he'd faced worse and would not be beaten down. He went for his whip even as he summoned his own magic, the ring on his finger flashing a hundred colors in the shreds of sunlight slipping through the heavy clouds above—

The men screamed as the ring flashed, recoiling, and he used his chance to strike. He killed the first two easily, plunging a dagger into the throat of the first and pulling his sword to attack the second, but he slipped in the ice and snow and dropped his whip.

After that, the fight grew more difficult, a riot of steel, magic, and cracking whips—and the ones they used were tipped with bits of metal. But the real threat held back, watching, waiting on his horse. Rounding on the bastard as he killed the last of the lackeys, he switched his sword to his left hand and held his right hand up, balling it into a fist as he summoned the magic contained in the rainbow ring.

Ring of chaos …

They struck at the same time, magic clashing with magic, a killing curse countered at the last moment, an explosion of painful light. His head felt as though someone had driven a spike through it.

He landed with a grunt, the bastard on top of him. What was going on? Where was he? Acting on instinct, he managed to grab the bastard, shift enough to throw him off, then snatched up his sword and plunged it into the bastard's throat.

Stumbling to his feet, he wandered blankly amongst the corpses, stumbled, and cracked his head against the edge of a cave. Regaining his feet, he stumbled some more until he banged into the back of the cave and everything went black.

He looked down at his hand, realizing his right hand was indeed missing its glove. Where had he put it? The ring shimmered in the weak evening light, and he could feel its power.

Ring of chaos …

Pain jolted through his head again. He was forgetting something important. Many things that were important. Who was he? Who was Sasha?

Nothing answered his question; no reply came from his own mind, just silence.

He resumed walking, desperate to get away from the fear that threatened to turn into panic. Looking through the snow, over the bodies, he finally spied the one he sought just past a rise in the snow. His sword was still buried in the body, the amber pommel shining. It took effort to yank the sword from the frozen body and more energy than he feared he possessed to get it sufficiently cleaned before he sheathed it.

Where was he? Where was he supposed to go? He looked down at the man he had killed, eyes lingering on the black diamond on his forehead. Kneeling, Sasha touched his fingers to the mark. Like the spider web on his chest, it had been put there magically. The mark stirred an image of a book, and words drifted out of the fog of his mind.

Shadow Sorcerers, so legend and a few more credible sources say, bore a mark on their foreheads:  a black diamond, similar and yet quite different from the circles borne by the Seers. According to some accounts, the circles were called 'Licht's Eye' and the diamonds 'Licht's Blade'. Some historians postulate that the diamond is, in fact, a combination of sun and moon, the crescent moon being the traditional symbol of Lord Teufel, the Shadow of Licht. Diamonds are the 'eclipse' where sun and moon join—that is, sorcerers serve both Licht and Teufel, and yet neither of them, standing as a neutral between the two temples. This is of course …

The words faded off, leaving Sasha with his head throbbing at his temples, painful enough it was making him nauseous. So the mark identified the man as a magic user, or perhaps a special level or type of magic user. Something flickered in his mind, but was gone again in a moment like candle smoke in a strong wind.

He looked the man over further, noting his clothes, noting the clothes of all of them, then at his own. A fully functioning mind wasn't necessary to tell him that, despite the fact he wore all black, his clothes stood out. Perhaps he needed to relieve his unsuccessful attackers of a few things. Going to their horses, which were clustered together in a grove of trees for warmth, he rifled through saddlebags until he cobbled together a full set of clothes.

Taking the pile, he carried it back to his cave so he could dress without the freezing wind blowing where he preferred it didn't. Stripping off his clothes, he quickly pulled on the foreign gear, though it took some fumbling to adjust the heavy, center-split tunic and to lace everything up properly. When he was done with that, he pulled his own boots back on and resettled his weapons. He hesitated over his whip, which was quite different from the barbed ones used by the dead men, but it fit his hand, and he knew it well, and he had no desire to use something as vile as the metal-tipped whips of the dead men.

Finished changing, he ventured back out into the snow to go through the corpses and relieve them of anything useful, pleased when he found food, a fire starting kit, and even a small bag of candy. A search through their saddlebags turned up a map, which almost made everything that had happened to him worth it, as it was much better than the one in his own bags. He also found a mirror and a small bag of bathing supplies, which made him even happier than the food—if he could ever find somewhere warm enough to use it all. Last, he pulled out small sacks of horse feed. All in all, he was feeling remarkably prepared for a man who had no answers for the questions:  who, what, where, when, and why.

When he was finished with poking around for supplies, he sent all but one of the horses off, hoping they would find their way home. He secured the remaining horse just outside his cave and got it settled for the night, rubbing its nose in reassurance. The horse whinnied at him and seemed content with the food he gave it.

Sasha gathered up the saddlebags and saddle and hauled them along with everything else he'd collected into the cave, somehow knowing that his bag was hidden behind a rock there.

A good place to rest for a couple of days. He'd restore his magic, get his bearings, then try to find the Great Wall.

What was the Great Wall? He tried to remember, but his head just hurt too much. Food, some real rest, then maybe he would have the fortitude to battle the curse.

Lighting a fire proved a difficult task, as it took some time to find usable wood, and he was so dizzy and exhausted by the end he could barely stand. But he pushed on, getting the fire started and melting snow—lots of snow—to have enough for tea and travel soup.

As the soup cooked, he sipped his tea and looked over the map he spread across his lap. He pulled his compass out of his bag to get his bearings, but then realized he didn't know where he was so he hardly knew where to go.

But … he was definitely in the mountains, the landscape told him that much. The men had horses and enough feed for a few days only, which meant they had expected to be back somewhere they could replenish their supplies soon. So if he was in the mountains, he could not be too far into them.

He ran his finger along the map, over the marks of civilization, until the name of one abruptly struck something in his mind.
Deer Run.
Is that where he had been heading? It was definitely further into the mountains than the next nearest town, which was Black Hill. Everything else on the map looked close to the mountains, but definitely not in them and not as close as Black Hill or Deer Run. If the landmarks on the map were to be trusted, he might be able to figure out his way. At worst, he would just get himself lost. Eventually, if he stumbled around enough, he would get un-lost. Or dead, at which point he would cease to care. Ideally, he would find a way.

Course somewhat decided, he tucked the map and compass away. His fingers brushed along the mirror, a smallish circle of polished silver that just let him see his reflection. He frowned, reaching up to touch his hair—long, black … wrong. But why was it wrong?

I could run my fingers through your hair all day.

Sasha dropped the mirror, startled by the voice, the memory—but it was only a whisper in the dark. He sighed and retrieved the mirror, frowning thoughtfully. His eyes were a dark, muddy sort of purple, though that could be because the light was so poor.

He looked like everyone else, so why had he been so certain he was a foreigner? He
was
a foreigner, he was certain. Frowning into the mirror, he lightly ran a finger along his forehead. If he was going to pass as one of their sanctioned magic users, then he would need the black diamond on his forehead.

Deception …

Shadows moved in his mind like a hand struggling toward his, but always just a breadth out of reach.

His body did not require his mind, however. He moved the mirror to his left hand and pressed the tips of the first two fingers of his right hand to his forehead.
"Shifting, shaping, moving, changing. Nothing deceives better than something desperate to live. The best place to hide is in plain sight. Disguise me so, gods of life who know best how to deceive."

As he finished whispering the words, heat filled his body, then began to move, coalescing in the center of his forehead. It burned, sharp, bright, and hot—then stopped. Sasha opened eyes he did not realize he had closed and stared in satisfaction at the black diamond on his forehead.

The smell of the soup made his stomach growl and he poured a large portion of it into his empty cup and gingerly sipped it while he went through his own bag, pulling everything out so he could repack everything between the bag and the saddlebags on the horse.

Unfortunately, nothing in the bag gave any indication as to who he was or what he was doing.  Aside from killing the beasts called Sentinels and looking for some Great Wall, none of which meant anything to him. Finishing his cup of soup, he poured the rest from the pot into it, then dragged the saddlebags close and pulled out the few things remaining it, spreading it all out on the cave floor—a spare tunic, a knife, and little packets of something he'd missed before. A delicate taste from one of the packets resulted in something sharp and bitter. Medicine, would be his guess. Couldn't hurt to hold onto it, he supposed, though he had no idea what the various packets did.

When everything was laid out, he slowly began to repack it and store it in the saddlebags, folding up his own bag and storing it in them as well.

All in all, he supposed his situation could have been worse.

Loneliness washed over him then, cutting so deep his eyes stung, though he had no idea why. Given all the dangers he had apparently faced just hours ago, surely he was traveling alone because it was safer? But that made no sense; it was always better to travel in company. If he had not woken in the cave, where he was relatively warm and safe, what would have happened to him? What if his wounds had been more than he could handle alone?

Why would he venture into such a dangerous place alone, especially when he was clearly foreign and therefore easily marked?

His head throbbed and staying awake was suddenly to difficult a thing to manage. Sasha set the saddlebags behind the rock where he had first hidden his bag, then put out the fire and cleaned up his cooking utensils. Tucking those away in the bags, he piled up snow as much as he could manage at the cave entrance to help keep in warmth, then pulled out his bedroll. Settling down, he wrapped up in his cloak and finally let sleep have him.

He looked up when he heard footsteps, feeling a prickle of awareness.

"I wanted to discuss something with you."

The weight of the words made his shoulders tense, but he only nodded and rose. "What did you want to discuss?"

"Have you ever heard of a child of chaos?"

"We normally call them the children of storms, children of the sea, but children of chaos would be another name for the people of Kundou."

"It has been used that way, but in this case I mean a very specific child of chaos. A true child of chaos is extremely rare, and for almost nine hundred years the world did not have one."

"But one has been born now and this is important?"

"A child of chaos is someone completely immune to fate. Wherever he goes, whomever he touches or  interacts with, he changes that person's fate—or rather, adds chaos so that they are not bound to one fate. He gives them choices."

He frowned. "All right. And?"

"And there are ways to mark a child of chaos … You are the only one."

"So what am I meant to do, then?"

Sasha twisted, turned, and jerked in his sleep, murmured to himself, then settled once more.

"You're a man of great kindness," a soft voice said.

"Is that another trait of a child of chaos?"

"No. Merely a bonus."

He sighed. "You need not keep pressing. I hear what you're saying … I'm no hero."

"No?"

"Doing one's duty does not make a man a hero. All it makes him is lonely."

Loneliness washed over him, the ache of a life where he went through the motions but did not really live. What reason did he have to live? He pinched the bridge of his noise, willing away the pain.

"… Don't despair …"

"Despair? I don't despair. I have never once in my life despaired anything. I make a point not to go further than resignation; it wastes too much energy. Is this a trip from which I might return, or should I plan never to come back?"